A little about me...

I was born in the back of a travelling show....

Wait no, that was a Cher song... my apologies.

Well the basics are taken care of in my profile here but would love to take this entry to tell you a bit more about my personal health struggles the last few years.

Christmas 2002 saw much for me in the way of medical drama. Boxing day morning on my way home from work I slipped, just slightly ( not even an inch), outside my door on a patch of ice. Let me warn you now this entry might make you squeemish.

What medical drama could slipping less than an inch on some ice cause you might ask? Well a fair bit in the domino effect.

That slip caused a tortiated right testicle resulting in some lovely swelling of my groin and slight pain that was manageable with Tylenol.

The swelling, the only known thing to me other than the pain, caused me to push even greater on the search for a new doctor. I honestly thought it was just a pulled groin muscle, as did most of my family. You see I have several nurses in the family that have instilled some great knowledge in me about healthcare.

Two days later a new doctor was found and I had my appointment scheduled for first thing the morning of January 2nd, 2003. Guess Tylenol would have to continue being my friend for a few more days.

I get in and after taking my history, and doing a physical I get referred to the oncall doctor in emerge at our local hospital. Just so happens that this doctor is one of the best Urologists in this area. My new doctor says he will call ahead to have me waived through emerge, what a treat.

I get there and get settled right away into an exam room, and almost right away the doctor comes in. Another history and physical get taken as well as a more thorough groing examination. I was informed about the tortiated testicle and given a script for the swelling and pain, and went through to radiology for some ultrasounds and bloodwork just to make sure that nothing was torn etc.

A week later and I was in at my now urologists office for a follow up. The swelling went down in that week as had the pain lessened, but not entirely depleted. He was happy with the follow up but just wanted to have me get another ultrasound to see if there was going to be any lasting damage.

Back up to the hospital I go the next day and head into radiology. The ultrasound tech began and was a bit perplexed. Needless to say he was unsure of what was showing on screen.

I know, I know. How many scrotal ultrasounds get that reaction right? Well he was pretty sure that it was nothing but having three pin prick sized dots show up on the monitor did call for more bloodwork to be done and a consult with my urologist. Another follow up there would be!

At that follow up he informed me that the three pin prick sized dots on the monitor might be numerous things, yes cancer was among them. During my whole time after the slip all the possibilities were going through my head anyways as to what it might possibly be. And yes cancer was there at the front of my mind as there is a familial history with the disease.

Due to the fact that it was still so close to the swelling going down and the tortiating of the testicle he was wanting to wait another week and have me go for some x-rays and another ultrasound just to make sure that these dots were not bursted blood vessels.

Well I do the requested testing and then go for the results, surprisingly requested by the urologist as a rush. And that is when I was told that he felt it was testicular cancer. Not the thing that a 22 year old male wanted to hear from a medical professional but nonetheless it was good to hear that it was true.

My partner at the time and I had dinner plans that night and he was going to wake me up when he got into town here from work as my appointment was mid morning after my shift at work. I ended crying myself to sleep and crying more when he woke me up with coffee and asked me how things went. It was a less enjoyable evening for me than it should have been.

So then the real "fun" begins.

Two weeks later I was in the hospital being put under to have my right testicle removed for biopsy. You see, a biopsy can not just be done in that area of the body as normal biopsies anywhere else on the body as the skin is so thin that if the tumors were malignant and the nicked any of it while doing the biopsy than those cancer cells could travel so quickly through the body causing more health issues than anyone desires.

Well the operation went smoothly and I was discharged that same day and was back at the folks, not a far distance from me, recuperating and 12 days later back in to see the urologist for the results of the biopsy.

Leave it to a gay guy to have even his health issues use the motto "go big or go home". I had the rarest form of testicular cancer, which by the way is also the deadliest even in stage one. Now don't get me wrong testicular cancer is one of the most curable cancers there are even in stage 3 there is a hight cure rate. Not this one. If not caught by accident and the tumors continued to grow to stage one levels there would have been a 50% chance that I would not be here right now.

Down I go soon after to meet my Oncologist with the Canadian Cancer Society Cancer Clinic in London Ontario. He gave me my option of surveillance or chemotherapy being that I was healthy, and healed quickly from the surgery and the initial "accident". I went with the surveillance, done through my urologist.

Well eleven months of monthly blood work, x-rays, and catscans go by and nothing new is showing. It looks like I may have actually licked this.

Month twelve.

Blood work= nothing.

X-rays= slight lymph node size increase

Catscan= slight lymph node size increase

My GP, and urologist are optimistic that it is just my system dealing with the change in my slightly off hormone levels being "one nut short" as it were. My oncology team though felt it was necessary for me to start other means of treatment.

When prompted with the choice of radiation or chemo they were shocked when I choose chemo. I know my body and what it can/will be able to handle. The chemo plan I was presented with was not the exact one as it was not truly tailored to my form of testicular cancer but after reading through the chemicals and side effects of each grouping it was the choice I made.

When was this staring? One week away.

How long was this going to go on? Four, possibly five, intense hospitalized courses dependant on my cell counts and over all health.

I was off work for five and a half months, with the only side effects of joint pain for a few days in my knees and feet, and not being able to stand even the smell of food warmer than room temperature.

My thanks being to the time of year being spring and summer for my time off.

The oncology team that I was in the care of were shocked at how well I was tolerating the regime. Frankly I was a tad bit shocked as well.

Then came the real fun day. My "final" follow up day.

Well the x-rays and catscan I had for this showed no change real measurable change in the lymph nodes that were being questioned but one. A slight increase in size did this one show.

I was then introduced to my new urologist at the London Health Sciences Centre in London Ontario. He informed me of what the next step in my treatment was. An RPLND. Well a partial one for me since the lymph nodes in question were in my abdominal cavity. That is also the night that my partner broke up with me. Talk about a double header, an end to the relationship and major potentially fatal surgery.

What is an RPLND you ask? Well it stands for Retro Peritoneal Lymph Node Dissection.

Basically if it is a full one then the patient is "Y" sectioned like you see for autopsies, have the ribcage cracked and spread open, organs lifted out, and lymph nodes removed.

I was only a partial than god. My scar starts below the ribcage and goes to the base of my penis.

I like to call it my zipper and want to get a little zipper pull tattoo at the base of it.

I should mention here that I was also informed of a genetic quirk I have upon my first appointment with my oncology team. Bushke-Ollendorf syndrome is what that quirk is. Hence why I refer to my scar as my zipper as my scar tissue is very noticeable.

So after all this surgery, chemical pumping, etc, I am down to bi annual followups with my London based urologist to see how my health is.

A few more years of this and I can say I am truly cancer free.

I like to think of it as yet another reason I do not like my 20's.







I hope I didn't gross you all out to much but thought I would let you know a little more about me.

Take care.

-D